The Essentials: 10 Classic Gangster Movies

This weekend, a heinous crime is committed in the release of “Gangster Squad.” At one time a hot prospect at Warner Bros, attracting an all-star cast including Josh Brolin, Ryan Gosling, Sean Penn, Emma Stone, Anthony Mackie, Michael Pena and Mireille Enos, many had high hopes for it, but the writing has been on the wall for a while. For instance, some claim that the film’s January release date was only a side-effect of reshoots ordered after the Aurora shootings, but the film’s original slot — the second weekend in September, one of the quietest moviegoing weekends of the year — suggested that Warners never had all that much faith in the finished product.

And it’s easy to see why, as we can absolutely back up our review from earlier in the week: “Gangster Squad” is a train wreck. It’s directed by Ruben Fleischer in a way that vacillates between gory Zack Snyder-ish cartoon stylization and po-faced seriousness, all through the lens of genuinely ugly digital cinematography that makes “Public Enemies” look like a pre-Raphaelite painting. It’s written by future “Justice League” writer Will Beall as a mix of cliches and nonsensical plot developments. And it’s acted, for the most part (Ryan Gosling‘s watchable, once you realize that he seems to be doing some kind of performance art homage to co-star Giovanni Ribisi in “The Other Sister“) by an ensemble who are either miscast (Emma Stone), wildly overacting (Sean Penn), boring (Josh Brolin) or entirely wasted (everybody else).

Frankly, the whole thing made us very, very sad, not least because we love the period and promise of the set-up: there’s nothing like a great cops vs. gangsters movie set in post-war L.A. But unfortunately, “Gangster Squad” is nothing like a great cops vs. gangster movie set in post-war L.A. So, to wash the taste out of our mouths, and to give you some alternate options to watch over the weekend, we’ve picked out ten great gangster pictures from the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s that do a much better job of the kind of thing that Fleischer and co set out to do. Check them out below, and let us know your own favorites too.

“Little Caesar”  (1931)
While Josef von Sternberg‘s 1927 silent crime film “Underworld” (also released as “Paying the Penalty“) was the blueprint for many of the now-iconic, Pre-Code 1930s gangster films, Warner Bros.’ crime film, “Little Caesar,” released at the very beginning of 1931, was the first gangster “talkie” to truly capture that public’s fascination with a genre that has never really gone out of vogue since. The template for the classic gangster film is generally the rise and fall of the criminal and “Little Caesar” sticks to that script closely, telling the story of Caesar Enrico “Rico” Bandello (Edward G. Robinson), a small-time hoodlum who rose up the ranks of the crime echelons in Chicago. Robinson, (Romanian-born Emanuel Goldenberg originally) was one of Hollywood’s unlikeliest leading men, but thanks to that unforgettable Romanian-Jewish mug (it certainly didn’t hurt that he had a similar kisser to Al Capone) he would go on to become one of Tinseltown’s greatest villains in the heyday of the gangster picture.“Little Caesar” (along with “Five Star Final”) launched that career, and when the film arrived in 1931, just two years before prohibition ended, it also launched the type of Bugsy Malone-like gangster that Hollywood would be fascinated with for decades to come. Unlike other classic gangster movies like “White Heat” or “G-Men,” however, this Mervyn LeRoy-directed film still had many leftover vestiges from the silent era — title cards explaining the action between scenes or when time spanned — and the soft-lit, soft-focused close-ups that defined that era. Still, don’t get it too twisted, “Little Caesar” is as gangsta as they come and charts the rise and fall of a self-made man who grew too big for his britches and was ultimately done in by the cops thanks to his own easily exploitable hubris. The picture also starred Douglas Fairbanks Jr., was nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay at the 4th Annual Academy Awards and has been been cemented in classic status by the National Film Registry and the American Film Institute several times over.

“The Public Enemy” (1931)
Well, if one guy is going to dominate this list it’s going to be a certain James Francis Cagney, so we really have to include his 1931 breakout, directed by William Wellman. Famous now for many reasons, not least of which is the notorious, frequently parodied breakfast scene during which Cagney shoves half a grapefruit into uncredited actress Mae Clarke’s face (it even gets a nod in “Some Like It Hot”), what’s impressive to a modern eye is just how many of the hallmarks of the evergreen gangster genre are already in evidence here, fully formed and as sophisticated as you’d see in any episode of “Boardwalk Empire.” Cagney, playing way younger than he was (as he so often did,) is Tom Powers, a no-good kid who, along with his buddy Matt, graduates from petty crime to grand larceny and murder in the heady, Wild-West atmosphere of the early Prohibition days (the film’s depiction of the near-riots during the last hours of legal alcohol sales is another highlight). He trades up suits, cars and dames along the way, upgrading in the latter case from ol’ citrus face to Jean Harlow, who has maybe two scenes, but one cracking speech that distills the essence of her own star persona (the bad girl bored with being good) and in so doing gently undercuts the film’s casual misogyny. But otherwise it’s Cagney all the way. It’s really not hard to see why this film made him a star — his particular volatile, bristly energy and unpredictable but thoroughly sold shifts in mood are a natural fit for this character (which he apparently based on real-life mobster and ‘Boardwalk’ regular Deanie O’Bannion) and would define a lot of his subsequent appeal throughout a brilliantly diverse career — hard to believe he was originally cast in the best friend role. And so, despite heavily moralising texts at the beginning and the close (you’d think it was a Code requirement, except the film came out before the Code was being actually enforced), and Powers’ sticky end (his body delivered, trussed like a parcel to his dear old ma’s house, just as he was on the point of rehabilitation) the film is in fact as fascinated by the glamor and personality of its central character as it finger-waggingly warns us not to be. It’s a prime early artefact in the long, long debate about the depiction of crime and criminals onscreen and the effect that empathy or admiration with these dangerous individuals can have on the viewer’s morality; a narrative that would continue throughout Hollywood’s Golden Age, including many of the other films on this list, and continues still today. Now, on a rewatch, “The Public Enemy” can feel almost cliché in parts, but if it does, that’s because it was the one to establish the clichés in the first place. And as soon as it does, Cagney swaggers and crackles his way onscreen and all thoughts of overfamiliarity are blown away. There really has never been anyone quite like him.